Tom Chadwick is a man with a fixation that’s both reasonable and relatable, and he becomes our tour guide to the familiar, funny Christopher Guest worldview.

It ain't deep, but the new Five-0 has the setting, it has the style and it has the cast to work.

When I write that "Undercovers is basically a slicker, more expensive, less geeky version of 'Chuck,'" that's not quite meant as an insult. I prefer "Chuck," but the pilot for Undercovers is stylish, sexy and, at its best, quite fun.

Midway through the first season, Lawrence, Biegel and the other writers realized their cast was so funny together that the wisest course was to just put everyone together as often as possible, let everyone be goofy, and see what happened. By the end of the season, it was often funnier many weeks than the "Modern Family" episode leading into it. And even with Aniston's guest appearance tonight, this is still the show that Cougar Town became at mid-season last year.

Dexter returns as a slightly fresher show, without doing any damage to the character fans love. I enjoyed the first three episodes back and I imagine most fans will feel the same.

Thanks to committed performances from Cumberbatch and Freeman, and clever writing from Moffat and Gatiss, most of it works splendidly.

s a pleasure to report that Gossip Girl launches its fourth season with two confidently satisfying episodes. Because the episodes are designed almost as a stand-alone chapter, I can't say for sure if this bodes well for the season to come, but hey... Good Gossip Girl.

That's Shameless in 30 seconds or less: messy, overcrowded, unapologetically frank and, at times, darkly funny.

The other six episodes I've seen have their ups and downs, but that's kind of the nature of the beast with comedies that push the outer edge of the envelope of taste and common decency; their batting average will be lower than their comedy peers, but their slugging percentage will be higher.

This is a very smart, well-produced, great-looking cop show, one that does familiar things but does them in interesting ways.

The new season starts a bit slow.... But it's all laying the groundwork for a gripping, almost nightmarish second half of the season in which the life of every member of the Gregson family seems in danger of splintering as badly as Tara's psyche.

While there was plenty these four could have continued to talk about, there was never a point where I felt they missed something obvious because they didn't know the others and what they do well enough.

It’s not perfect, but it’s easily the most restrained--and satisfying--Kelley series since those first couple of years of “The Practice.”

With Samuels' star-power and the proficient execution of the episode episodes, The Nine Lives of Chloe King is the sort of summer fun that I'll happily watch in the summer and it has the potential, if it navigates the story properly, to become the rare ABC Family series I might stick with even against regular programming.

Falling Skies is exactly what you'd expect it to be, only a very good example of it (and is at its best in Sunday's pilot), and an ideal summer series. For once, Spielberg and company got it right on the small screen.

Despite whatever aesthetic limitations it may have, The Curious Case of Curt Flood manages to tell a solidly complete version of the story over its 90 minutes, resisting the temptation to make this a simple hagiography.

Not only are high school horrors pretty universal, even if the specifics change, but I can find a way to fit "Awkward" into a tradition of hyper-literal high school comedies like "Pretty in Pink" or "Heathers" or "Mean Girls" or "Juno" or "The In-Betweeners" (if your taste runs to British TV). It's not as good as any of those, but it's not as bad as "Jawbreaker," which is in the same tradition.

If Jane Timoney continues to be an interesting character--and if the characters around her become three-dimensional enough to stand plausibly with or against her--then this could hearken back not only to the original "Prime Suspect," but "NYPD Blue," "Homicide," etc.

The female leads are appealing, the world promising and the pilot much more clear-eyed and less compromised in its view of the era than "Playboy Club" is.

The Shannons overall are about the last reason I would recommend this show, after the cool visuals, some effective action set pieces and the expected strong supporting performance by Stephen Lang.

It feels fairly honest, and more interesting and relevant than most.

The show as a whole moves briskly and confidently.

The formula doesn't always work (insert memories of your least favorite "Grey's" story arc here), but when it does, Rhimes is as successful at tugging for the heartstrings as anyone in the business.

If it's not exactly "Gilmore Girls 2: Acoustic Boogaloo," it's close enough to be reassuring--and, on occasion, distracting.

With a cast this good, and with so many potentially juicy conflicts already in play, I'm going to take a more optimistic point of view than Elaine Barrish (Sigourney Weaver) might.

The supporting cast was better used, there were occasional touches of humor beyond Monroe, they mythology didn't just feel like a retread of bits from "Buffy," "Angel," etc., and I even thought leading man David Giuntoli had gotten better.

Grammer is outstanding enough on his own to merit watching....Boss as a series, though, still doesn't seem like it's quite there.

If you're not meant to think too hard about what's happening, then "Sons" largely succeeds at its goals, particularly given the performances, the direction (led by Emmy winner Paris Barclay) and Sutter and his writers' talent for crafting gut-wrenching individual moments.